1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet processing apparatus that feeds a sheet having an image formed thereon by a copying machine, a printer, a multifunction peripheral (MFP), or the like to a finisher and has a collating function.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, among image forming apparatuses, there is an image forming apparatus in which a finisher is provided adjacent to an image forming apparatus main body in order to perform post-processing such as processing for sorting sheets after image formation and processing for applying staple processing to the sheets. An inserter may be arranged at a pre-stage of the finisher in order to feed sheets having images formed thereon to the finisher.
In a general inserter, since a user needs to arrange orders of sheets to be inserted in advance and insert the sheets, a burden is imposed on the user.
In JP-A-2001-270653, a collating device is described. In this example, prints are supplied from plural printing machines to plural trays on a belt conveyor, respectively, and the prints received by the trays are collected and stacked to collate the prints. However, in this example, since the plural trays and the belt conveyor are necessary, the apparatus is large in scale.
In JP-A-10-186741, an original conveying apparatus that copies plural originals by the number n and sorts the copies is described. In this example, a system for varying discharge speed at the time when a first sheet is discharged and at the time when second to nth sheets are discharged on the basis of the number of copies n is adopted.
However, since it is necessary to frequently switch discharge speed of the sheets, a structure of the apparatus is complicated.
Moreover, in JP-A-9-48531, a supplying apparatus that supplies sheets to a collating machine to bind the sheets is described. This example is a large-scale apparatus for bookbinding.
The present invention provides a sheet processing apparatus and a sheet processing method that can classify sheets into predetermined states and discharge the sheets.